News reaching us indicates that the Plateau State government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a France-based company, called Kankerizo Park Ltd,  for the rehabilitation, upgrading and re-positioning of Pankshin Hotel as part of efforts to boost tourism.

The Commissioner for Tourism, Culture and Hospitality, Mwankom Peter John signed on behalf of the state while the company’s Managing Director, Gerard Daminet  signed on its behalf.

The government has also invited other investors to identity one or two areas in the state in which they could intervene, saying the current Public Partnership option would be strengthened to boost the economy of the state.

ViewPointNigeria

It is customary to applaud the signing of an MoU –as is typically the case in our politics. But before we rapture into a “big round of applause” to celebrate another “MoU”, it is good to dive-deep into the specifics of the MoU and critically assess what it actually means and what the status of the other numerous MoUs signed by PLSG in the last 2 years are.

Often, we hear announcements from PLSG about MoUs signed with companies and foreign organisations, so it is important to look back over all the other already signed MoU’s to appraise their progress and see if they have materialised into real benefits to Plateau people.

Consider the following MoUs which have been signed by PLSG in the past years.

Our analyst picked up 8 MoU’s signed by PLSG in the past few years and undertook a quick review to see how they have progressed and if they have started to deliver dividends to Plateau.

From our review, only the partnership with with Hummer Drinks stands out. It has gone from MoU stage to actual production stage. Where the company is already producing water from the plant, under the brand name “Gov-water”. Albeit, the production of soft drinks is yet to commence and there are plans to get this going in the next phase of production etc.

The only thing of slight concern is the fact that the partnership is very skewed towards Hummer drinks – with an ownership of 67% with Plateau state with only 33%. This remains an area of great concern that needs to be reviewed to understand the underlying reasons for such a deal, given that Plateau state owns most of the capital infrastructure in the Plant. Deal of this nature typically have the host government as owning most of the equity (say 75% to 25% for instance -so it is slightly alarming that the reverse is the case here).

In addition, the tax that the Hummer Drinks consortium pays to PSIRS is also something of interest. It will be great to understand the overall contribution of the newly reviewed company to Plateau state coffers. A company of this sort which is already in production, should pay a substantial amount into the state coffers. ViewPointNigeria is already working independently to obtain these documents/numbers and will publish accordingly.

The remainder of the MoUs appear not to have gone beyond their preliminary stages. It is however noteworthy that the MoU with Roughton International UK Ltd for the Jos Main market already has an expenditure of N230 million for feasibility studies etc. However, concrete steps with regards construction appear to be far fetched and our reporters are already placing calls to the director to understand the exact stage of work.

With regards this new MoU for the rehabilitation of “Pankshin Hotel” – our analyst undertook some research to understand the financial standing and capabilities of Kankerizo Ltd (the company which signed the MoU with PLSG). However, nothing could be found about this new company, but its MD Mr. Gerard Daminet is also the CEO of a company (Contec Global Ltd http://contecglobal.com) which has been operating in Nigeria for a while. So it would appear that Kankerizo is a newly incorporated company with new directors etc. We shall obtain accounts for Contec Global and publish once received.

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VPN Analysis: PLSG signs MoU with french firm for Pankshin Hotel